Perv(36)
“I wouldn’t go that far. You have no idea what’s happening inside this quiet façade.”
“Can I have Rafe drive you home?”
Jenna pondered the idea. “Do you mind?”
“Not at all. We weren’t planning to stay much longer, anyway. We can drop you off. That way you don’t have to sit in uncomfortable silence with the brooding, intense Mason.” Katy grinned.
“That would be a relief. Plus the man has a way of controlling me. If he takes me home, he’ll have me naked at his bidding before I can open the front door.”
“Then it’s settled. Naked with Mason isn’t a good plan right now. He’s in so deep he can’t make good choices this evening.”
Katy stood. She shrugged off the blanket, and Jenna was surprised to see she was dressed underneath. She wasn’t wearing enough to go out into the general public, but she must have put her clothes, such as they were, back on before Jenna had approached.
“Nice outfit,” Jenna teased, running a finger over the lace across Katy’s stomach. The corset her friend wore was a sexy black material that lifted her breasts so perfectly Jenna was envious. She wore a tight leather black skirt that barely covered her ass to round out the ensemble.
Katy smirked. “Wanna go shopping?”
“Not yet, no.”
•●•
Jenna stepped into her apartment and kicked off the high heels that hadn’t gotten her fucked this evening. As much as she would have loved for Mason to bring her home and have his way with her, she knew it would have been a horrible choice.
Katy was right. She needed time.
The look on Mason’s face had spoken volumes when Jenna told him Rafe would bring her home. The man hadn’t wanted her to leave with someone else, but he nodded and walked her stiffly to the door. He kissed her forehead and hugged her before she left. His only words had been brief. “I’ll call you?”
Jenna had nodded consent.
With a deep breath, she padded across the worn carpet of her apartment. She poured a glass of water from the tap and hit the button on her answering machine.
“Jenna, darling. We haven’t heard from you in weeks. Please call home, or better yet, come to dinner this Sunday. We’re having Chicken Marsala. You love that dish.” Her mother’s voice grated on Jenna. The last thing she needed tonight was to listen to the woman’s pleading in her usual haughty tone.
Jenna shut off the machine so she wouldn’t have to hear the rest. Joann Mathews was not a woman to be ignored. She called every Friday to check on Jenna and invite her poor lost lamb back into the fold. Every week she insisted Jenna attend Sunday dinner. And every week Jenna ignored the woman.
She had her own life to live, and it didn’t include glamorous parties with caviar and pâté served by underpaid waiters wearing tuxedos.
Jenna cringed and flopped down on the couch. She popped her ass back up and moved a few inches to the left when she hit a loose coil.
As punishment for not agreeing to live up to her parent’s standards for a true debutante of her age, she’d been cut off from the family’s allowance. And good riddance. It was much more gratifying making it on her own, anyway.
When Joann called inviting Jenna to dinner each week, what she really meant was, “Have you come to your senses yet, young lady?”
Jenna was an embarrassment to her parents. They had a long line of lies they used with their friends to explain her lack of appearance at family functions, none of which made Jenna so much as flinch. She’d never bought into the family wealth as a child, and she had no intention of starting now.
How she’d managed to be raised in such affluence without succumbing to the lure of money was a mystery. Well, maybe not. It might have had something to do with the little boy she’d played with for years as a child. The head maid in the house had a son Jenna’s same age, and she lived in a guest home on the Mathews’ property. Jenna spent long hours running with David, climbing trees, scuffing knees, and making a mess of David’s room at his house. His mother, Mariel, took Jenna under her wing and let the young Jenna get into all sorts of mischief.
Jenna learned at a young age she could trust Mariel. And through a woman who was more of a mother than Joann had ever been, Jenna learned humanity. David was no less of a person to be respected in life than Jenna. He was her friend. And when it later turned out he was also gay, Jenna hadn’t cared a bit.
They’d been teenagers at the time, and David had hidden his sexual orientation for years. Finally one day when he’d been seventeen, he’d come home with another guy, and Jenna’s mother had seen them holding hands. Joann had promptly fired her head maid of almost fifteen years, and Mariel had been left destitute on the street.